Posted
by
timothyon Saturday October 05, 2013 @12:10PM
from the so-it-wasn't-the-pipe-after-all dept.

sciencehabit writes "Smart, successful, and well-connected: a good description of Albert Einstein and his brain. The father of relativity theory didn't live to see modern brain imaging techniques, but after his death his brain was sliced into sections and photographed. Now, scientists have used those cross-sectional photos to reveal a larger-than-average corpus callosum — the bundle of nerve fibers connecting the brain's two hemispheres. The thickness of Einstein's corpus callosum was greater than the average, and more nerve fibers connected key regions such as the two sides of the prefrontal cortex, which are responsible for complex thought and decision-making. Combined with previous evidence that parts of the physicist's brain were unusually large and intricately folded, the researchers suggest that this feature helps account for his extraordinary gifts."Abstract (full article is paywalled) at the journal Brain.

If Einstein were alive, he would have told you, as he told them when he was still alive -- he wasn't particularly intelligent, only passionately curious. That's paraphrasing a direct quote. He probably would have also told you to stand outside utterly fascinating by water drops falling out of a fountain instead of going to accept your award for being so smart, and run around town in your loafers not giving a fuck what anyone else thought of you.

Maybe it's not intelligence per-se that we need to encourage, but non-conformity and the ability to embrace new ideas without pre-judgement.

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” - Albert Einstein.

But you know, his subjectively modest opinion of his own relative intelligence, doesn't disprove that his brain had unusual features which may have provided certain advantages. Saying "anybody who works hard and has a good sense of curiosity has the potential to be an Einstein" is a nice thought, but that doesn't actually make it true.

" his brain had unusual features which may have provided certain advantages"

Or... his life revolved around unusual studies which caused his brain to respond by developing the corpos callosum?

Possibly - you do bring up a good question. Einstein does mention his passionate curiosity, and we do know that people with brain damage can rereout and relearn. So yes, this might be a chicken and egg phenomenon.

Aren't these unusual brain features exactly what half the humans on this planet have? Women have more "cross linking" of the two brain halves. IMO these are a minus when it comes to focusing on one thing -- like Einstein did with Relativity -- not a plus. So I'll go with the "more curious" explanation.

If Einstein were alive, he would have told you, as he told them when he was still alive -- he wasn't particularly intelligent, only passionately curious.

Curiosity is necessary for a great scientist (or even a not-so-great one) but it's not sufficient. Along with his brilliant statements about the nature of the universe, Einstein said a lot of goofy things, and this is one of them. His passionate curiosity combined with his intelligence is why he's still pretty much the canonical image of the scientist today. I guarantee you there are many, many people who are just as curious about the world as he was, and very few of them will be remembered.

Curiosity is necessary for a great scientist (or even a not-so-great one) but it's not sufficient.

No, sorry, but this is a fractally wrong statement to make. With sufficient curiousity, you will be dedicated to learning as much as you can. The drive to learn will push you where you need to go. Intelligence merely sets the speed by which you'll arrive. Your over-emphasis on intelligence is elitism; It's suggesting that if you can't be "smart enough", you shouldn't be in science.

I disagree. Firmly. Anyone can be a scientist. It is a method, a way of learning about the world. Almost every human being on th

With sufficient curiousity, you will be dedicated to learning as much as you can. The drive to learn will push you where you need to go. Intelligence merely sets the speed by which you'll arrive.

True, but I'd argue that "mere" speed is pretty important. There are only so many hours in the day. A particular problem with modern science--bad enough in Einstein's day, worse now--is that there's a whole lot you have to learn before you can hope to make meaningful new contributions to any field. To refer back to an earlier famous scientist, standing on the shoulders of giants is great, but a lot of times you reach the shoulder of the giant only to realize that you

The end. There is no "but"; Either it's a correct statement, and you need to admit your original was mistaken and try again, or it's not, in which case no 'but' is required. All that using the word 'but' means is that your pride was hurt. While I sympathize, please stop using your busted argument.

No one really knows at the outset if they've got what it takes,

"Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge." -- Carl Sagan

No, people do know. It takes the ability to observe natural phenomenon, form conclusions based on that, then test them unt

You're pursuing this argument in a way that is typical in the humanities and social sciences, namely by deciding on the conclusion you want ("anyone can be a scientist") beforehand, and then justifying your conclusion by warping the definition of "scientist" to mean "anyone who is interested in science". That is not what the word means.

The term "scientist" as it is used in common English, and certainly as it pertains to Einstein,refers to a professional researcher who discovers and publishes new research.

Your over-emphasis on intelligence is elitism; It's suggesting that if you can't be "smart enough", you shouldn't be in science.

Unfortunately, the world is divided into the elite and the non-elite when it comes to mastering technically complex information, whether you like it or not. Specifically, an aptitude for math is an absolute requirement in the physical sciences. Without it, you may dabble in science, but will never be a significant contributor to it.

No, sorry, but this is a fractally wrong statement to make. With sufficient curiousity, you will be dedicated to learning as much as you can. The drive to learn will push you where you need to go. Intelligence merely sets the speed by which you'll arrive. Your over-emphasis on intelligence is elitism; It's suggesting that if you can't be "smart enough", you shouldn't be in science.

This is a nice thought, but patently untrue. It's like saying that anyone can be an NFL football player, and your level of physi

Tsk. Curiosity generates intelligence. There are other ways, of course (meeting parents' expectations, in particular), but they're not as reliable or resilient. I would argue that the developedness of Einstein's corpus callosum (which does seem to be a congenital trait) simply meant that he was better able to benefit from his curiosity and to be more satisfied and captivated by its fruits.

Citation needed. Please show me a study where someone who becomes curious about something becomes more intelligent. Conventional thinking right now is that intelligence is primarily genetic, and while it can be influenced by environment, it is largely fixed from birth. There are no cases I'm aware of where a person who was firmly tested and found to be of average or below average intelligence, by some later life experience, became a genius. This is real life, not Flowers for Algernon.

I would argue that [...] he was better able to benefit from his curiosity and to be more satisfied and captivated by its fruits.

Citation needed. Please show me a study where someone who becomes curious about something becomes more intelligent.

Given that we're talking about development from an extremely early age, that would be illegal, but I will do my best to explain this.

Conventional thinking right now is that intelligence is primarily genetic, and while it can be influenced by environment, it is largely fixed from birth.

This is the primary reason given for the class bias seen in IQ testing. That is not, at all, conventional thinking. Read this [ucsd.edu] and this [psmag.com]. If intelligence were genetic to the extent you suggest, the children of immigrants would be incapable of integrating at the most fundamental cultural level.

Curiousity is a personality trait. Intelligence is an ability. You can be curious and stupid, or disinterested yet intelligent. One has no bearing on the other.

If you are curious about how something works, you will be more likely to figure out how

Curiosity causes thinking. Thinking causes more brain development. Just like practice thinking (the studies done about crossword puzzles in old people and such) proves an improvement in brain activity, one could take that to mean "curiosity causes intelligence".

Sort of... but the reality is that the core of how cells work is directly analogous to the hardware/software distinction in a computer (in fact, they're Turing-complete), so stretching things into a car metaphor is much harder to do—try explaining the contents of a typical Unix box's task list in terms of types of vehicles you see on a road, and you'll see how pointless it is.

the core of how cells work is directly analogous to the hardware/software distinction in a computer (in fact, they're Turing-complete)

I was just trying to make a joke, but it's an interesting question: are cells Turing machines? (To the degree anything in the real world can be called a Turing machine; if you know where to get a computer with infinite memory, please send me the manufacturer's URL.) They have the potential to be, else we couldn't build biological computers--which AFAICT are just lab curiosities for now, but may someday do real work--but it seems to me they don't really act like them in their day-to-day functions. Then a

There's an old machine learning technique called genetic programming [wikipedia.org], which consists of randomly trying to find the correct algorithm to solve a problem. It's infeasible for large problems, but I've seen an example of using it to find Newton's law of universal gravitation. The raw result was a hilariously overcomplicated equation full of redundant multiplication and division operations, but it showed a real, meaningful evolutionary process. Just because a program's insane doesn't mean it's disqualified! (An

A little over a hundred years ago, people thought that humans could never fly because science proved it with the knowledge of the era. And yet when people work on so-called "perpetual motion" machines, they're called idiots just because our current understand of physics says it's not possible. And when you ask a scientist to explain gravity, all he can offer is a formula to calculate its value because all the current theories can't quite explain gravity itself and even those who try see their theories destroyed at smaller scales.

While your comment is massively off-topic, it hits on a topic near and dear to my heart, and it pains me greatly to see anyone misunderstand how science works, even an anonymous internet punter.

1. This is technically a true statement. Humans still cannot fly. We stuff ourselves in giant metal cans with wings on them, and the machines fly. We just sit inside them, continuing to stubbornly obey basic biology.

But I get your point. I notice you said "people thought," not "scientists thought". As far back as roman-greek times, people were dreaming about flying. Davinci was inking flying machine after flying machine. People who were studied in science never claimed it was impossible because they regularly observed birds flying. They knew they simply lacked sufficient understanding to do it, and set to the business of gaining that understanding.

2. Perpetual motion is idiotic; There has never been a case of it being observed. I'll explain in a minute just why scientists consider these people abject morons.

3. When you ask a scientist to explain gravity, he explains it on the basis of observation; Drop an apple, and it hits the ground. We can measure it very precisely. We have a great many theories that have allowed additional experiments to be carried out to observe it in more detail. The fact that it cannot be explained at the very tiny scale of quantum mechanics is not proof the theories are broken, but rather that some crucial observation is missing to tie it all together.

4. On the issue of scale, if I took your car engine and shrunk it to about 1/5th scale, it wouldn't run anymore, despite being exactly correct in every proportion. It's been long-understood that various physical forces only balance each other out at certain points and times. You can't create nuclear fission, for example, until you've gotten enough fissile material in the same place and close enough together. You can't just scale down beyond a certain point -- the machine will fail to function. This isn't a problem with "can't quite explain gravity", but rather a misunderstanding of fundamental physical laws.

When I see people write things like you just did, it makes me sad. Science is about empirical observation. It is the essence, the core, upon which everything else is built. You do not have to understand something to have it become scientific knowledge -- that's just extra. If you can observe something happening repeatedly and explain to others how to observe the same thing, and consistently get the same result, then you have science. Note that I didn't mention a theory, or an understanding, about what is being observed. All I mentioned were the elements of independent observation and the ability to reproduce the results. Understanding only comes in the context of research -- this is where we look at other observations and try to find similarities and common themes and patterns, that might allow us to construct a theory to explain what's going on. And theories can, indeed must, change whenever we find new observations that contradict it. But this is not instantanious. Observation does not automatically lead to theory.

We must experience first, then understand. It has always been this way. This is not science; This is life.

That isn't true at all. Perpetual motion is an innate property of the universe itself on many scales.

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof.

On the macro scale there is the constant expansions and contraction. All energy and particles are in a state of perpetual motion. The only reason anything ever appears to not be moving is because the scale you are focusing on is moving at a rate comparable or slower than the rate your energy is moving at on that scale.

No, it's because I understand the first and second laws of Thermodynamics. The fact that things are in motion does not change the fact that (a) energy can be neither created nor destroyed, and (b) the entropy of an isolated system never decreases, because isolated systems spontaneously evolve toward thermodynamic equilibrium; which is to say... it stops moving. All that motion you're describing is part of an open system, not closed. And even it will eventually stop; See also -- heat death of the universe.

If your body and mind moved at the speed of rock the landscape would be bubbling (rock moves like a fluid, rising when heated, sinking when cool, and yes I'm referring to the 'solid' stuff) and erosion on a mountain might appear to be sand being blown off a dune. People might look like sparks or possibly move so fast as to not be observable.

Look, if you want to play games with optical illusions and relativistic effects, rock on with your socks on... but no physical laws are being broken here. Your perpetual motion machine... can't exist.

Now, if you have some proof that the laws of thermodynamics are broken, the second law in particular... please step forward and collect about 50 consecutive Nobel Prizes. Otherwise, you need to accept that perpetual motion machines... are a scientific impossibility. The end.

I'm pretty sure that as far as human understand goes, the universe is a closed system. Even if you go with one of the multi-verse theories, you are just working with a redefinition of universe, so change it to the multi-verse being a closed system, and you are back at a perpetual motion machine.

Basically, you have two options to explain the fact that the universe exists at all. 1) It is a big perpetual motion machine. 2) Magic. Option 2 is a far extraordinary claim than option 1.

Basically, you have two options to explain the fact that the universe exists at all. 1) It is a big perpetual motion machine. 2) Magic. Option 2 is a far extraordinary claim than option 1.

Probably a few more options than that. Especially considering the current "most commonly accepted" (to the best of my knowledge) theory as the fate of the universe is heat death. That does not sound very perpetual to me..

That is fine and dandy if you only look at one end of the time arrow. Claiming that heat death of the universe is even likely going to happen because energy only moves towards entropy without explaining how it got into the non-heat death state is doing an awful lot of hand waving. It is basically declaring "MAGIC!".

No. My premise works like this: The universe can empirically be shown not to currently be in heat death. Since I don't believe in magic, I assume that there must be some scientific way in which the universe got into such a low state of entropy. You have it completely backwards. I say that the universe did NOT magically get into a low state of entropy due to magic. YOU are using ID tactics by claiming the universe got into a low entropy state, so it must have been by magic, but think that by not using

Now, if you have some proof that the laws of thermodynamics are broken, the second law in particular... please step forward and collect about 50 consecutive Nobel Prizes.

Exhibit A: The Big Bang. Yeah so I'm sort of cheating since it's a total unexplained "phenomenon" if you can call the birth of a universe that but by the laws of thermodynamics as we know them the universe could never have begun. Even if you assume our universe sucked that energy out from somewhere else then that source must have even higher entropy, which must come from a place with even higher entropy and so on. If it's constantly decreasing then we either started at infinity - meaning we could build an i

I've read a lot about neuroscience discoveries and interesting abnormalities and didn't know the direct correlation between the corpus collosum thickness and intelligence. Ok, so when someone claims something like this article I think - bah... another stupid claim about Einstein. But this time there is some merit to the claim. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2754582/ [nih.gov]
And yes, his other brain differences were know for a while, so this seems to be a new revelation based on new evidence of the correlation and the discovered photos.

no. The sample size which his brain is being compared to is much larger. He is the not the sample size, he is being compared to the known correlation of intelligence and corpus collosum thickness. Check it on google to find more research results.

no. The sample size which his brain is being compared to is much larger. He is the not the sample size, he is being compared to the known correlation of intelligence and corpus collosum thickness. Check it on google to find more research results.

Yes. He is being compared; HOWEVER, if you were to argue that this means thick corpus collosum makes you perceived as intelligent, that would be to commit a prosecutor's fallacy.

The study does not show if corpus collosum thickness is useful information or

It only shows he had this difference; not that it was a factor in the public's perception that he is deemed intelligent.

While arguing about logical fallacies you've failed to address the original point entirely; A sample size of one is a problem, guys. It can't disprove the null hypothesis. It doesn't matter how many observations you make in the control group; At the very best, the ideal case, you'll succeed in identifying properties of this brain not present in all those other brains, but what you could be identifying may have absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. It could just as easily be another property, like his

While arguing about logical fallacies you've failed to address the original point entirely; A sample size of one is a problem, guys. It can't disprove the null hypothesis. It doesn't matter how many observations you make in the control group; At the very best, the ideal case, you'll succeed in identifying properties of this brain not present in all those other brains, but what you could be identifying may have absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. It could just as easily be another property, like his love of Justin Bieber (hey, if we're going to allow a sample size of one to be scientifically valid, I'm bringing time travel back -- so no bitching).

But the sample size it not 1. The article is claiming two things: CC thickness is correlated to Intelligence (which the article should have backed up with references), and two: Einstein's CC was thicker then normal. It is thus drawing a rather thin correlation to a correlation. But the sample size is not 1 because the article is not trying to say that since Einstein had a large CC and was intelligent, then CC thickness must mean higher intelligence.

It is thus drawing a rather thin correlation to a correlation. But the sample size is not 1

A correlation is a comparison of a measurement between two samples.

For example: People who have thick members and those that have thin members.

You cannot take a representative sample of people who have a small penis and a girlfriend-finding success rate of 3 girlfriend/year, and compare it against a sample of one person who has a large penis who happened to have a success rate of 14 girlfriends/year,
to

^^ This guy gets it. But next time man, stick with the traditional car analogy. If you mention penis, the discussion goes one of two ways after; Either everyone giggles and spends the next ten minutes exchanging awkward looks before one of them says penis again, ad nauseum... or someone assumes you insulted the size of their penis and WWIII breaks out, resulting in downmods and bitchiness all around. Also, anyone who has even 3 girlfriends a year obviously has commitment issues... let alone 14, at which poi

To continue your infantile example you are forgetting about the group of people with a large dick having larger success with women than those with small. Now there is some evidence to say "buddy's giant dick might have helped with the ladies".

To put succinctly: this is not a sample of one. This is a datum in a sample.

You cannot take a representative sample of people who have a small penis and a girlfriend-finding success rate of 3 girlfriend/year, and compare it against a sample of one person who has a large penis who happened to have a success rate of 14 girlfriends/year, to find a correlation of penis size to number of successfully found girlfriends.

Your point may be right, but you undermine it with obviously false analogies. His brain is not being compared against one other (as in your analogy). Thus your analogy is false.

His brain is not being compared against one other (as in your analogy). Thus your analogy is false.

No. The analogy is correct. HIS Is the one brain being compared against a more representative sample of the population.
You have reverse the relationship, that doesn't invalidate the analogy "The other people's brains" are being compared against HIM; he is the sample of 1, and he was not chosen randomly, either, therefore: he is not even a representative sample, which essentially means, that ho

No. The analogy is correct. HIS Is the one brain being compared against a more representative sample of the population. You have reverse the relationship, that doesn't invalidate the analogy "The other people's brains" are being compared against HIM; he is the sample of 1, and he was not chosen randomly, either, therefore: he is not even a representative sample, which essentially means, that however you proceed from that comparison, it will have no scientific or statistical validity; you can only use it as a rough way to try to guess at a hypothesis --- not to test a hypothesis.

That's not how it works. You can look at one and have it be "meaningful". They call them "case studies" and it's a recognized and accepted practice. Comparing one against one doesn't work because you don't know what the "control" one is. Your "control" could be a 5' 0" adult male. So a 5'2" man would be considered "tall". That's why two samples of one doesn't work very well as a comparison.

But taking a single unusual male and comparing him against the "average" will correctly identify a basketball pl

This is not about perception it is about facts, and correlation. Fact: Einstein had a much higher then normal/average intelligence. Fact (but not well understood or even well researched so I would call it a weak fact): thicker corpus collosum is correlated to higher intelligence. Fact (according to one study which measured the thickness of Einstein's corpus collosum using photos): Einstein's CC was thicker then normal. Ergo, there could be a connection between Einstein's CC and his intelligence (if that

But this time there is some merit to the claim.....new evidence of the correlation and the discovered photos.

I agree there is some good science going on here and there is merit.

But this data isn't nearly as revealing as TFA & most pop-science articles will indicate.

You hit it by mentioning "correlation"

My point is, like the chicken and egg analogy, a larger corpus collosum doesn't make one smarter...reading, thinking, good health, human interaction, challenges, open-mindedness, accepting failures and c

Hmm, so we're comparing photographs of a fixed/preserved and sliced brain with those acquired by an MRI. Does anyone know what kind of variance or error these different imaging techniques introduce? There is enough variability in brain size and location of features that normal comparisons of one person's brain via MRI with another person's brain are rather meaningless. The standard procedure is to warp MRI brain scans to a common brain, and then run the comparisons of warped/normalized images....

Thomas Stoltz Harvey [wikipedia.org] (a pathologist) conducted Albert Einstein's autopsy. What they seem to omit (probably due to embarrassment) is that he stoleAlbert Einstein's brain. [wikipedia.org] Apparently he was trying to figure out (and take the credit to be famous) the very same thing, what made Albert Einstein so intelligent. He became obsessed and it ended up destroying his life and marriages, yes, multiple marriages. The only thing two things he did right was preserve the brain properly (though he sliced it into many parts) and eventually (decades later) return the brain. If you think he got his just deserts, well, take solace in that his selfish actions destroyed him.

"the founder lost interest, and the mission and pride of accomplishment was thus lost. as it is often so with political movements and fads science, so it was with Slashdot and Cmdr Taco" -- Albert Einstein

maybe that they are more intelligent. I'm not trolling, I'm somewhat serious. I also don't think correlation means more then just that: correlation (like ice cream and drownings), but it could. So lets stay open and keep looking for answers.

why would you think that, you might be using as your sample base the professionals you meet who congregate to and live in large cities, but maybe also you should be considering the ones in prison. just as with straight people, those are mostly not einsteins in the slammer

Just watched this which includes the latest findings on Einstein's brain, and was struck by how bad NOVA has become. It used to be a fairly hard science show but this featured adolescent humor and cheesy cut scenes, such as the presenter and a scientist using binoculars to look at Princeton where the majority of his brain is stored. I can only hope this is not the norm for the current NOVA programming, as I was extremely disappointed. - HEX

While interesting, this was known decades ago.
Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" tv series, produced in 1978, has a segment specifically devoted to Einstein's brain. Sagan talks about Einstein's abnormally thick corpus callosum and suggests that it might somehow be related to his genius.
Whoever authored this paper is not making a novel hypothesis.

How many times is this story going to show up? When I was tutoring someone for AP statistics, I learned a lot of interesting shit. One thing I remember was that if you take some ordinary object and measure 20 properties of the object, there is a high probability that one of the properties will be far from the mean. So if you take some famous person's brain and measure it in enough ways, you will find a property which is far from normal. Then you say 'aha!' and write a story about how such and such's ability

That's completely right, but this is even worse. This is not a random sample that can be drawn again and again, this is a fixed object and the independent variable in this case would be that we are all convinced that Einstein was more intelligent than the rest of us. That's methodologically quite unhealthy.

Second, the obsession with trying to explain everything from a single cause and from a single brain feature in particular has failed so often in the past. We don't even have a good definition of intellige

This is not new information. Both observations about Albert Einstein's brain have been around for a long time.

But so what? Do we have evidence, aside from Einstein's brain, that being extra wrinkly correlates with high intelligence in humans? Or that having a bigger than average corpus collosum correlates to having higher intelligence in humans?

Thomas Edison was no genius, he just hired a bunch of smart people. Do not confuse an Edison or a Ford with Tesla or an Einstein. Ford and Edison were normal people with lots of resources who were very successful at getting people to produce results. People like Tesla and Einstein are geniuses.

Yet I would argue true geniuses need the support structure the Steve Jobs/Edisons/etc can provide to realize their potential.

I think this is right on, but it extends much farther than just "true geniuses". Personally, I'm one of those highly technical people who are really good at the nitty gritty details of making technology work, but as I've learned more about myself over the years I've realized that I need to make sure I stay in the technical arena, rather than going into management or some of the purely "visionary" roles, because the high level of technical talent I have doesn't mean I have a commensurately high level of visionary talent. I've learned that a good idea for me is to seek out the visionary types in my organization and try to get myself onto their projects, because they can supply overall direction and I can provide a really good technical implementation. I'm not trying to compare myself to Woz, Einstein, Tesla, or these other geniuses, because I'm not nearly that smart, but I do think the principle extends to me an many others. There is an almost symbiotic relationship that can be had when technical people realize they need visionaries, and visionaries respect and treat the technical people well. I think it applies to much of industry, not just super geniuses and super visionaries.

The problem is that "average" in common usage usually refers to the mean, except when it doesn't. Which is why statisticians avoid the word as much as possible.;) It was the use of "Statistically speaking..." that caught my eye; practically every time someone starts out that way, they're going to say something that needs calling out. (Other examples include "I'm opposed to censorship, but..." and "I'll probably get modded down for this...")

Statistically speaking, assuming everything to have a normal distribution until proven otherwise would be better than 99% of assumptions statisticians make. Even when demonstrably wrong (long tail effects) it's usually good enough that it's used anyway, because that's what the models and understanding surrounds. And only when looking at the log tail in isolation to the statisticians care enough to abandon the normal distribution.